Understanding One of Mexico’s More Rare and Esoteric Mezcals

I wasn’t prepared to have my expectations about ancestral mezcal shattered just 30 minutes from a Sam’s Club in the suburbs of San Luis Potosí, a sprawling industrial capital in the Bajio region northwest of Mexico City.

But here we were, winding out of the city, approaching El Palmar Segundo, the home of the Navarro family who produces Campanilla mezcal. El Palmar Segundo is less a small, rural town and more of a compound holding four independent distilleries (or tabernas, as they’re known locally), plus a pulque producer (she’s another cousin). They count eight generations of mezcaleros in the family. Everyone works within the same process, with some more organized than others.

Until recently, this was a clandestine business. Jaime Navarro and his mother Maria’s taberna is still shielded by a solid wall of cacti and sunflowers. Nearby are the ruins of at least two other tabernas—Jaime’s uncle and grandfather’s old rock-lined fermenters lie untouched for a generation, now filled with weeds.

Their mezcal is still almost unheard of in the city. At local cantinas, they drink mostly 38 percent ABV tequila and chelas (cold beer). The family could only name one place in the city (a sushi joint) that serves their mezcal.

None of the local indifference matters, since we’re in a sunny, rolling field teeming with agave alongside one of the maestros of the current generation. Jaime Navarro is excited to show us every aspect of his extended family’s operation. Jaime wears work jeans, boots, and a T-shirt. He is big but baby-faced, and has a long, wispy goatee. Walking among the campo, he keeps a Corona in his back pocket as he points out the differences between the local salmiana and crassispina agave subspecies.

Here, the chino agave has more pencas (fleshy leaves), while the leaves of the cuerno curve like a sheep’s horn. Jaime reaches into the center of an agave to show us a signature cut he calls “picado.” Some mezcaleros call this practice capon, where a mature agave’s quiote—essentially an asparagus spear–like tree stalk that grows from the center of the agave and will eventually sprout seeds—is shorn well after it’s started to grow. Jaime dives into the center of a salmiana agave and slices out the leaves until it looks like a trimmed artichoke heart. The agave will begin to rot from the outside over three to four years, ripening and retaining sugar.

Maestros in San Luis Potosí have to get creative to make mezcal. Steaming is popular, but the rotted, dried out penca and agave bases left over once the piña has been trimmed? Those are put to use for fueling the ovens and stills. The region has far fewer trees than Oaxaca, so cooking agave over wood is a rare luxury. With this useful fuel, the flavor of pure agave is unadulterated.

The Navarros have more tricks to make the most out of their agave: They trim very little off the piña, leaving a cut so shallow that the harvested agaves look like giant green pinecones. Every bit is sacred—some of the agaves, like the blanco subvariety, only yield 30-40 liters of mezcal a year.

After the agaves have been cooked, they’re crushed with a tahona, but here comes another piece of medieval technology: the trapiche. Pulled by hand, the trapiche squeezes every last drop of juice out of the cooked agave fibers. The squeezed juices are mixed with 30-40 liters of pulque made from pulquero agaves grown by their cousin down the road, and fermented undisturbed for 8-10 days. In addition to helping fermentation, the pulque adds a distinct fresh fruitiness to the final product.

The “Campanilla” itself refers to the bell-shaped bowl hung inside the sealed clay pot still, counterbalanced by a chunk of agave penca, that captures the distilled spirit. Here is where you should forget everything you’ve ever learned about distillation. This is known as a Mongolian still. It’s essentially a Filipino still (the earliest still type brought to the Americas) that internally captures the distilled spirit in the campanilla rather than as outflow to an external container. Two oblong, almost amphora-shaped clay pots are stacked on top of each other, with the top pot open on the bottom and covered by a copper basin filled with water. The bottom pot containing the fermented juice is lined with iron. These break frequently, and dead clay pots are strewn around the tabernas.

Instead of individually firing each still, the clay pots are arranged very close together in sets of four and fired centrally. The upper clay tops where the campanilla hangs can last for generations if they’re properly maintained. Jaime pointed out a still that he said was his grandfather’s—over 80 years old.

With no outlet for the mezcal, how do you know what’s even happening inside the still? The Navarros watch the evaporation and movement of the water in the copper basins. As the mezcal is distilled, the water is checked, stirred, and refilled as it evaporates. The rule is that after nine changes of water, the first distillation is complete.

During distillation, all of the heads are captured plus some of the tails, resulting in a uniquely textured and flavored mezcal. All of this work and generational knowledge yields roughly 2,000 liters a year.

After watching Maria move through the stills, stirring and replacing water, we spend the rest of the afternoon outside Jaime’s home, drinking beers, sipping his mezcal, and sharing stories. The mezcal is redolent of the classic flavors I associate with salmiana—serrano pepper seeds, green bell pepper, vanilla, earth, and dirt. Ironically, in this dry part of Mexico, it evokes a forest walk.

Until recently, Campanilla has mostly been shared among those in the know. Since batches and production sizes are so small, only a few hundred bottles are released at a time, snatched directly from their taberna or at a few shops in Mexico City. The mezcal first reached the United States this past summer and is poised to expand its cult status. Lately, it is the second mezcal I’ll reach for in a tasting at The Cabinet (the New York City agave bar I manage), accentuating a contrast with the fruitier, smokier mezcales typical of Oaxaca.

Campanilla is special because it provokes a fresh consideration of mezcal among both beginners and experts. Through Campanilla, you can glimpse mezcal’s true potential—a spirit that remains true to its place and local traditions, developed in independent silos of knowledge across a vast, diverse country.